Potato & Tuna Gratin

Dinner today was pretty simple. I ran out of ideas on what to prepare when hubby suggested potato gratin. Total time to prepare this is about 1 hour including baking time. I cooked my potatoes first because hubby doesn't like half cooked potatoes. To reduce the preparation time, I zapped the potatoes for about 3-4 minutes in the microwave oven.

Just out of the oven - golden brown and bubbly 8-)

Served

I served this with haloumi cheese bread (will update the recipe later) - toasted, buttered and sprinkled with parsley and the combination was simply delicious. My hubby actually ate almost 3/4 of the dish .. heh

Ingredients

3 medium size potatoes, cooked and sliced thinly
2 small tomatoes, sliced
1 can tuna in mayonnaise - I used Ayam Brand tuna
1 can nestle cream
shredded cheese (cheddar and mozzarella)
2-3 tbsp plain flour
freshly ground pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree celsius
2. Greased casserole dish with butter
3. Arranged half of the sliced, cooked potatoes at the bottom of the dish
4. Add half of the sliced tomatoes
5. Spread half of the tuna on the tomatoes followed by freshly ground pepper
6. Sprinkle 1 - 1 1/2 tsp plain flour followed by shredded cheese
7. Put the other half of the potatoes, followed by tomatoes, tuna,pepper and flour
8. Pour cream over the gratin and sprinkle shredded cheese generously over the cream
9. Bake in the oven for about 20minutes till the top is bubbly and golden brown
10. Serve immediate with salad or garlic bread

Salmon Sushi

I love sushi and sashimi especially salmon. I was sort of craving for one after seeing one of my online friend's homemade sushi and decided to make some for myself too.

To me, sushi is actually not very difficult to make. Rolled sushi is a little bit more troublesome but generally they are still pretty ok. One thing good about making sushi is that you can be as creative as you want when it comes to the filling.

The sushi rice recipe I used is very simple. To have a more flavourful rice, you may want to add konbu/kelp during the first minutes of cooking the rice. I did mine without it.

Simple Sushi Rice

Ingredients
1 cup calrose rice (short grain rice), you can use japanese rice if you want to
1 cup water

Vinegar
3 tbsp rice vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Method

1. Wash rice till the water clears and soak it for about 30minutes
2. Drain the water and add 1 cup of water into the rice and cook it either in the rice cooker, microwave or the on the stove
4. Once the rice is cook leave it covered for about 10-15minutes
5. Fluff the rice with rice paddle and cover the rice pot again with a kitchen towel for another 10minutes
6. While waiting, mix all the vinegar mixture and heat it on the stove until sugar dissolves
5. Transfer and spread rice in a non-metallic bowl, sprinkle the vinegar mixture into the rice and fold rice gently while fanning it
6. Once rice reaches room temperature, the rice is ready to be used. Cover it with a damp kitchen towel if you do not want to use it immediately

Easy Vege & Pasta Casserole

This is an extremely easy dish especially when you have only like less than an hour to prepare a decent meal. However, for this dish to taste great, you need to use a good sauce. I didn't make the pasta sauce from scratch, just got it off the shelf. I love to stock up this brand because of the flavours that it has.

The sauce I used to make this dish.

You can get this easily at any major supermarket, the best would be Cold Storage if you can't find it at NTUC. This is one of my favourite sauce - very tasty.

Ingredients

Serves 2
150-200g macaroni
100-200g mixed vege (I used a mixture of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, mushroom, young corn)
half a bottle of Leggos Stir Through pasta sauce
shredded cheese, mozzarella and cheddar, enough to cover the pasta

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius
2. Boil macaroni till al-dente, drain and toss with a little olive oil to prevent them from sticking
3. Blanch mixed vege till half cook (I prefer mine to be crunchy)
4. Pour cooked pasta and mixed vege in a deep casserole dish
5. Pour the sauce over and toss the pasta and vege till well coated with the sauce
6. Sprinkle shredded cheese generously over the prepared pasta and vege
7. Bake in the oven for about 20-30 minutes or till the cheese turn golden brown
8. Serve hot

Pizza

Pizza is my significant other's favourite food. Whenever I ran out of ideas to cook, or have some veges to clear, this will be one of our regular meals during the weekends. However, this time I took a challenge to make it on a weekday after coming back from work. Of course it took me 2 days in total to come out with this perfect pizza. I made the dough the night before and let it proof in the fridge for almost 24 hrs, the result was fantastic.

Thanks to Del (aka Hula_mom) for sharing this great recipe (It is my favourite now.) The cornmeal gives the pizza that extra flavour. Also, before putting the pizza base on the pan, sprinkle some cornmeal on the pan - makes it fragrant and lots of flavour.

The recipe is similar to the recipe that I used regularly except that this one uses bread flour instead of all purpose flour. The rest of the ingredients are the same. I used my breadmachine to knead the dough but you can knead it manually if you like.

Ingredients

Makes 2 12inch pizza base
1 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups bread flour
1 tbsp cornmeal (grainy)
2 tsp instant yeast

Method

By Breadmachine
1. Dump all the ingredients into the breadmachine pan in the above order and select 'Dough'
2. Once the dough program has ended, take the dough out and punch it down
3. Lather some olive oil on the dough, wrap or cover dough with cling wrap and let it proof in the refrigerator for at least 12 hrs.

By hand
1. Mix flour, cornmeal and salt together
2. Add instant yeast and mix it well (Avoid direct contact with the salt)
3. Add water and knead the it into the dough
4. Add oil and continue kneading till the dough becomes elastic
5. Lather the dough with olive oil and wrap or cover dough with cling wrap and let it proof for at least 12 hrs.

Preparing the base
1. Take dough out of the refrigerator and leave it out till it reaches room temperature
2. Punch down the dough to let the air out but do not over punch it
3. Split the dough into 2 equal balls
4. Roll the dough out and top it with your pizza sauce and toppings of your choice. If you want a pan pizza type, let the base proof for about 30 mins before you start with the toppings.
5. Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius and bake the pizza till golden brown

Note: If you are using active dry yeast, you will need to activate the yeast with warm water before you can use it.

Steamed Egg White Rainbow Cake

I have not been baking for a while and my hand got itchy to bake one. But unfortunately younger daughter fell ill and I had to change my plans and make a steamed cake instead. Found an old recipe in my recipe file and thought of giving it a try. This cake uses only egg whites which I have quite a bit left in the freezer to clear.

The layering of the cake can be quite time consuming but it was worth every effort.

This is the overall look of the cake.

This is the closeup.

The original recipe uses 3 colours but I only used 2 colours, red and chocolate from the chocolate emulco. The other is the original colour of the cake batter.

Ingredients
500g egg white
60g evaporated milk
1 tbsp vanilla essence (You can use butter oil or sweetcorn oil also)
150g melted butter
225g castor sugar
300g top flour
1 tbsp ovalette/sponge cake stabilizer
3 colours (red, green and yellow), 1/2 tsp for each colour
1 tbsp chocolate emulco
a pinch of salt

Method
1. Beat egg whites at high speed. Add sugar bit by bit once the egg whites turns bubbly. Continue beating till soft peaks.
2. Add flour, milk, ovalette and salt and continue mixing.
3. Add melted butter and mix till well blend.
4. Split batter equally into 4 parts and add one colour to each part
5. Add chocolate emulco into one of the part
6. Grease a baking tin with butter and scoop 1 tbsp of yellow mixture into the centre of the baking tin, continue with 1 tbsp of the red onto the yellow mixture, scoop 1 tbsp of the green mixture onto the red, scoop 1 tbsp of the chocolate mixture on the green and repeat with the yellow, red, green and chocolate until finish.
7. Steam on high heat for about 30 minutes or till cake is done.

Hard Boiled Egg & Taukwa in Salted Soya Bean

This is generally a protein packed dish. My mom loves to make this with leftover fried fish - my dad's favourite. But for me, I prefer to have it with hard boiled eggs and taukwa (firm beancurd). This dish is very easy to prepare, just need to chop the ingredients but you have to fry the beancurd before adding it to the dish. That to me is the only troublesome part.

Ingredients
4 hard boiled eggs
2 taukwa (firm beancurd), cut into 4 and fry till slightly golden brown
1 large onion, sliced
1 medium garlic, sliced
2cm ginger, crushed and chopped
1-2 fresh green chillies, sliced
1 stalk large lemongrass, sliced thinly
3 small/2 large assam keping
3-4 tbsp salted soya bean
2 tbsp oil
1/2 to 1 cup water

Method
1. Heat oil in a pan. Once hot, add sliced onions, garlic, ginger, chillies and lemongrass and stir fry till fragrant
2. Add 1/2 cup of water and let it simmer for about 2 minutes
3. Add assam keping, stir mixture and continue simmer for about 5 minutes
4. Add salted soya bean and simmer till the gravy starts to bubble
5. Add hard boiled eggs and fried taukwa and simmer till the water reduced. You can add more salted soya bean if you like it salty or more water if you like more gravy
7. Serve with hot steamed rice

Spicy Steamed Corn

I usually have steamed corn as a side dish for dinner but usually it is just plain steamed corn. Saw this interesting version in a cook book and decide to give it try since I love spicy dishes. I modify the recipe slightly by adding fresh chopped basil. I just love basil.

Ingredients
2 corn, cut into half
5 cm ginger, grated
3 clove garlic, grated
1 large fresh red chilli, chopped - more if you like it spicy or remove seeds if you don't want spicy
handful of chopped basil (optional)
2 tsp white/black peppercorn, crushed
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp fish sauce

Method
1. Mix all the ingredients except the corn
2. Arrange corns on a plate and topped them with the above mixture including the sauce
3. Steam till cook and serve immediately